Kerala: CBI prepared to probe child trafficking case

Kochi: The CBI on Wednesday informed the Kerala High court that it was prepared to takeover investigation of the case relating to bringing of 580 odd children from Jharkhand, Bihar and West Bengal to the state orphanages.

The stand of CBI was informed while considering a PIL by an All Kerala Anti Corruption and Human Rights Protection Council, an NGO in Palakkad district seeking to handover the investigation to CBI.
Meanwhile, on the court`s directions, Advocate General K P Dandapani handed over details of the investigation conducted so far by the Crime Branch police to the court in a sealed cover.

A Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Manjula Chellur and Justice K Vinod Chandran opined that since other states were also involved, proper investigation had to be conducted by an outside agency.
According to the petitioner, the present investigation carried out was `ineffective` and only if an independent outside agency conducted investigation, truth could be brought out.

The case has been posted to Monday.

The children, who had been brought to be sent to two orphanages in the state, had been detained by police last month at Palakkad railway station after finding that many of them did not have any proper documents.

The issue had snowballed into a major row in the state with IUML, the key partner in UDF, objected treating the incident as a case of child trafficking.